The first could be a desire to avoid regulation. Facebook has been under-fire for the impact of their platform on individual (e.g., mental illness) and societal well-being (e.g., fake news). So, just like car manufacturers started offering seat belts to improve travellers’ safety and improve the brands’ image, social media companies might be offering these mechanisms to improve their users’ well-being and improve the companies’ images, before they are forced to do it (as was in the case of the tobacco industry).

The second could be that limiting our time on the platform may actually be good for business. At the moment, many of us are scrolling these platforms mindlessly – out of boredom, with little or no attention to what is on the screen. Yet, as James Williams explains in the book Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Persuasion in the Attention Economy, the business model of social media companies is to capture our attention, so that they can sell us ads. I think that the new mechanisms, by limiting the number of times that I am going to check Facebook and/or how much time I am going to spend on the platform, will lead to more intentional browsing. And if I am more engaged with what is in front of me, then I am going to pay more attention to whatever adverts appear in the middle of my friends’ posts.

2 thoughts on “Limiting users’ time on Facebook, makes great business sense”

There might be another reason similar to the seat belt thing, Google has implemented the limitation on Facebook or any other app at the operating system level with Android 9 Pie. It allows to limit time spent on a particular app or type of apps. Better than having it in the app, which each app will implement in a menu somewhere, this allows for the users to control time in ALL apps, making it more user friendly. Facebook might simply be afraid that they get controlled rather than be the controller, this is the same reason why Facebook phone failed, and is the same reason Facebook offers identity management for apps at general.